Summit Mayor Percy Robinson won re-election in the town’s general election Tuesday, defeating first-term Councilman Chris Daniels on a wave of high voter turnout, particularly among young people.
Robinson received 251 votes (61%) to Daniels’ 159 (39%).
Incumbent Councilman Marcus Pittman led a field six of six candidates running for council seats with 325 votes and will be joined on the council by Keyon Daniels, who had 289 votes, Pauline Monley with 256 votes and DaJuan Hodges, who had 251 votes.
Katherine Nicole Thompson finished fifth with 167 votes and first-term incumbent Councilman Julius Nash had 139.
The mayor’s race was easily the highlight of the ballot and the likely catalyst for the high voter turnout, with Robinson facing the first challenge since he was first elected to the mayor’s office in a special election in 2006, when he defeated Lester Swanigan.
“I’ve never had to do it before,” Robinson said of facing an opponent. “I had to do it one time, and that’s when I had to run against Mr. Sawanigan. That was the only time. All the other times I was unopposed. It’s good to have some competition so you don’t get too complacent.”
Robinson was elected with 266 votes in an unopposd race in 2021, and he nearly met that total during this year’s balloting while facing an opponent.
“I thought we would have a good turnout this time and we did,” Robinson said. “I was still trying to push people out to go vote.”
The mayor’s race heated up as Election Day neared when Robinson challenged Daniels’ residency, claiming he lived in Rankin County, but Robinson said he was glad to see wheat he called a clean race.
“Everybody ran a good race. I thought it was a clean race,” Robinson said.
As for plans for the next term, Robinson said he believes the council that voters chose will be easy to work with, and he’s hoping to take things easy out of the gate, and he wants to act on the issues he heard on the campaign trail.
“So we just got out there and put our time in, talking to the citizens, not making them a lot of promises,” he said. “You can’t do that, because, as you know, there are certain circumstances, you have a board, you have a budget.
“I think we can come in here and work together. At least two of them on there, they are going to be able to learn. We’re just going to bring them on slow,” Robinson said.
